


Entanglements

by akane42me



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E.
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-12
Updated: 2013-12-12
Packaged: 2018-01-04 10:06:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1079693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akane42me/pseuds/akane42me
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Story prompts: A cozy inn, a broken leg, tangled Christmas tree lights.</p><p>Merry Christmas to Avery11 from your Secret Agent Santa!</p>
    </blockquote>





	Entanglements

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Avery11](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Avery11/gifts).



> Story prompts: A cozy inn, a broken leg, tangled Christmas tree lights.
> 
> Merry Christmas to Avery11 from your Secret Agent Santa!

Entanglements

 

Ten Yews Inn  
Switzerland  
December 23, 1962

The knock at the kitchen door startled him.  The big clock in the lobby had only just chimed eight times.  Gunter put his book down with a thump and scraped his chair away from the little table by the kitchen window and went to the door.

Pauly’s boy stood there, his straggly black hair whipped into strands, hanging in his shifty eyes, concealing his pasty face.  Reed-thin, he swayed like a winter sapling buffeted by the wind gusting down from the upper hills.  What saved him from being uprooted was the heavy carton threatening to fall from his skinny arms.  His hands were red, but the fingertips were white with frost nip.   Pauly’s boy was too stupid to wear gloves in the cold.  The box slipped in his numbed fingers.  Gunter stepped over the threshold and pulled the box out of the boy’s hands.  

“For the Americans.”  Pauly’s boy blew on his fingers and stomped his feet. 

Gunter carried the box to the big cook’s table in the middle of the kitchen.  He took a few coins from the tin on the counter and handed them to Pauly’s boy.  A pack of cigarettes poked from the chest pocket of the boy’s black leather jacket.  Useless against the cold, as were the thin leather boots he wore.  _A waste of money, all of it._

“Get yourself some work gloves,” said Gunter and closed the door. _What Americans?_

The carton contained vodka and scotch.   A familiar combination.  _Not only American._ Gunter pulled two bottles by the neck from the box and took them to the pantry, placing them next to the sugar bin.  Muttering a little, he pulled open the heavy, sticking tool drawer under the storage shelves and lifted out his service pistol.   Paused, remembering.  They would want the box in their room.  _Do not disturb._ He tucked the pistol under his arm and carried the bottles back to the box on the cook’s table.  _Two bottles each.  An extended stay.  Must be something complicated._

The suitcases arrived two hours later.  The fellow from town set the luggage inside the kitchen door and apologetically pulled a slip of paper from his breast pocket.  He handed it to Gunter and shrugged.  _What-can-you-do?_

Gunter glanced at the paper.   It contained a list – two lists, he saw, as he turned it over.  On one side, a request for Renna.  Her potato perogy in golden chicken gravy.  Hearty stews. Crusty breads and cheeses, hard and soft.  Roast chicken.  Biftek au pauvre.  A mélange of tastes. His mouth watered. Renna would not be happy. Christmas was two days away.  She had plans to visit her sisters.

The list on the other side was a request for supplies. Clothing.  Books.  One set of skis, boots, and poles.   _One set._ He supposed one would pretend to be an academic and the other a ski bum.  He wondered who they were looking for. 

The telephone number was American. Gunter knew it by heart. Of course the supplies and requests would arrive before the guests.

He put the list on the cook’s table and carried the box up the stairs to the room with the southern exposure, where the luggage already waited.  _The usual room._   

When he got back to the kitchen, he spotted his pistol on the cook’s table.  He broke it open.  The chamber, empty.  _Not like the old days, when he kept it loaded, within reach._   He went back to the drawer and pulled out the box of bullets. 

Next, he called Renna.  Pauly’s boy answered. 

\- Is your mother there?

Silence.  He repeated the question.

\- No. 

-  When will she get back? 

\- I don’t know.

\- Well, tell her to call me.

Silence.

\- Make sure you remember.  It’s about the guests.

Silence.

Gunter hung up.  Pauly’s boy was unreliable in all matters concerning Gunter.  Gunter suspected it was deliberate. 

He thought about Renna.  It was Saturday.  She would be with the priest.

_“He’s dead a year, Renna. It’s not a sin.”_

_“From before.”_

He had no answer for that.  
* * * *

In the late evening, he waited in a chair near the fireside in the great front room, keeping an eye on the night-blackened windows.  At a little after ten o’clock he spotted the lights of a car climbing the hill.  He stood, stretched, and took his coat from the back of the chair.  Pulling it on as he went, he shouldered open the heavy wooden door and stepped outside.  The car pulled up to the entrance and stopped. 

The car’s rear passenger door facing the entrance swung open.  An arm pushed out two crutches and leaned them against the side of the car.  On the far side of the car, the driver’s door opened and a blond head appeared over the car roof.  _The Russian._   Illya Kuryakin rounded the car, going directly to the opened passenger door.  He bent inside and eased the passenger’s legs out, one of which was heavily bandaged from ankle to thigh, the trousers cut off above the knee.  The rest of Napoleon Solo appeared.  Kuryakin took Solo by one arm and helped him maneuver to the edge of the seat. 

“What happened?” asked Gunter.

Kuryakin turned, saw Gunter’s surprised face.

“Where is the wheelchair?” asked Kuryakin.

“I didn’t know about a wheelchair.”

Kuryakin gave Gunter a brief stare and said, “No matter.”  He turned back to the car, leaned down to push his arms under Solo’s armpits and pulled at him.

“Ouch.”  Solo said, bending his bandaged leg, leaning heavily on Kuryakin. 

“Take his other arm,” Kuryakin grunted at Gunter.

“I’m fine with these,” said Solo, getting a hand on one of the crutches.

Kuryakin took the crutch from Solo and hurled it down the icy drive.  Gunter watched it slide away into the dark.  The other crutch slipped sideways and fell to the ground.

“Take his other arm,” Kuryakin repeated.

Gunter did.  He stole a look at Solo.  Solo saw it and threw Gunter a mirthless smile.

They hobbled into the inn, crossing the great stone-walled room with the fireplace that substituted for a lobby.  Gunter wondered how they would manage to get Solo upstairs to the room.  He paused and looked at the stairs.  Kuryakin and Solo were pulling away from him.

“Gunter.”  Kuryakin, impatient. 

Gunter turned to them.  “The stairs will be difficult.”

Kuryakin made an exasperated sound.  “You didn’t call the number, did you?”

“It didn’t say to call.”

“I’m certain it didn’t say _not to_  –”

Solo cut Kuryakin off.  “It’s okay, Gunter.  Why don’t we get set up in the downstairs room?”

The trio made their way to the room.  Kuryakin went to the windows and checked the latches.  Gunter offered a late dinner of cold sandwiches.  Solo declined, saying he was tired.  He gingerly made his way to the bathroom, using the furniture and wall for support. Kuryakin went to Solo and offered him an arm, but Solo waved him off.  Kuryakin watched Solo’s hesitant progress and said, “Call me when you need help.”  Solo did not reply.  Kuryakin growled an oath under his breath.

As Solo closed the bathroom door, Gunter said, “I’ll get the luggage,” and ducked out of the room, out of the path of Kuryakin’s foul mood.  He went to the kitchen first and made a phone call.  Another U.N.C.L.E. number, also memorized.  Then he went upstairs for the suitcases.  He’d forgotten about the box of liquor.  He’d take care of it later.  And he might as well put away his gun and bullets.  _You old fool._

He picked up the suitcases and took them downstairs.  Outside the agents’ room, he put a carefully neutral expression on his face and knocked on the door. 

Kuryakin let him in.  Solo was nowhere in sight.  The bathroom door was still closed.  Gunter put the suitcases on the floor.  Kuryakin picked one up and put in on one of the beds.  Gunter lifted the second suitcase onto the other bed.  From the bathroom came a small crash.  Solo’s voice came from behind the door in a muttered curse.

Kuryakin said, “He needs a wheelchair.  He agreed to stay off that leg completely until the cast goes on, so it heals properly.”

“I called Deiderich.”  Station Chief, Zurich.  “It will be here in the morning.”

“It should have been here already.  You should have called Mr. Waverly.  You’re getting careless in your retirement.”

Gunter stiffened.  He pointed at the bathroom door.  “ _I_ am not the one with the broken leg.  _I_ am not the one who had to call Ferenti—”  

“Keep your voice down,” Kuryakin snapped.  Seeing Gunter’s clamped jaw, he sighed and said, “I could use a bite to eat.  Let me check on Napoleon, and then we’ll talk.”  By the time Kuryakin finished speaking, he was alone.  Gunter had turned on his heel and left.      
* * * * 

In the kitchen, Kuryakin found Gunter setting out a platter of cold beef alongside slices of cheese and bread and crocks of ground horseradish and butter.  He’d set out a pair of plates, utensils, and two small, time-worn glass tumblers.  A bottle of red wine had already been uncorked.  Kuryakin reached for it. 

Gunter hesitated, and said, “If it is permitted, what happened in St. Moritz today?”

Kuryakin lowered the wine bottle.  “ _Permitted?_   Gunter, don’t put on a humble servant act with me.”

Gunter pulled the bottle from Kuryakin’s grasp.  He picked up a glass, poured two inches and downed it in two swallows.  He poured anther two inches. 

“ _Permitted?”_   He mimicked Kuryakin.  “I meant, are _you_ allowed to talk about the mission?”  

“So Deiderich didn’t fill you in on all the gory details?  How unlike him.” 

“That’s enough.”  Gunter spoke quietly, setting his glass down. 

Kuryakin took a slow breath.  “I’m sorry.  It’s been a difficult day.”  

“Really?  I hadn’t noticed.”  Gunter poured some wine in the second glass.  Handing it to Kuryakin, he said, “This should help.”

Kuryakin drank his wine and coughed.

“Good, eh?”

_“What is this stuff?”_

“Pauly’s chokecherry.  1956.”

“It should be illegal.”   

Gunter laughed.  “Eat,” he said, and was glad to see Kuryakin smile at last. 

As he assembled a sandwich, Kuryakin filled Gunter in on the day’s events.  That morning, they’d been tracking two Thrush adversaries in the lower hills of St. Moritz.  They were within thirty feet of surprising their prey when Kuryakin, in the lead, slipped on the icy rocks and nearly plunged off a high ledge.  The Thrush men heard them and circled back on the U.N.C.L.E. agents, surprising them in turn.  During the struggle, Solo fell against a boulder and went down hard.  He shot one of the Thrush men and Kuryakin shot the other.  Solo was unable to walk.  They’d called Carlo Farenti, Waverly’s counterpart in Geneva, for help.

“He broke the tibia. It’s a stable fracture, so it’s splinted for now, but it needs a cast in a week.  Waverly sent us here until then.  He’s calling it a holiday.”  Kuryakin shrugged.  “It looks like I will be the only one doing any skiing.” 

 _There’s more to it._ Gunter knew better than to pursue the matter.

After the meal they cleared away the food and dishes.  Kuryakin retreated to the room to unpack.  Gunter took his heavy coat from the hook on the wall rack and went outside.  He pulled in a deep breath of icy air and looked up.  The black sky was filled with shimmering stars.  His eyes watered from the cold, sending the stars into a dizzying whirl.  He worked his way down the drive to the row of yews growing from the ancient rock.  He’d guessed the crutch Kuryakin had thrown away would end up there.  It was.  He walked back to the car, picked up the second crutch, and took them to the agent’s room.  
* * * *

Solo was rummaging through his suitcase, his back turned to the door, when Kuryakin walked in.   

“What do you think you’re proving, throwing my crutches away?”  Solo said, without turning around.    

“What do you think _you’re_ proving, bringing them in the first place?”

“I need them.”

“Not until you get the cast.”

Solo steadied himself on the bed frame and turned to face Kuryakin.  “I don’t want a wheelchair.  Forget it.”

“It’s either that or the hospital.  Doctor’s orders.”

“ _You’re_ quoting doctor’s orders? With a straight face?”

“Waverly’s orders, then.  You need to be careful.” 

Solo stilled, remembering. 

_Illya, slipping on the ice, sliding toward the ledge.   Solo, without a second thought, yelling, “Be careful!” Illya, standing over him after the shooting was done, scowling, saying, “You gave away our position.”  They’d bickered all the way to the hospital about it.  The drive to the inn was silent._

“Napoleon, it was an unfortunate choice of words.”

“You intend every word you say.  So say what you mean.”

Kuryakin stood, mute.

“Fine.  I’ll say it for you.  You still think I shouldn’t have warned you.”

“I think you were overly cautious.”

“You just told me I need to be careful.”

“Don’t make a joke of it, Napoleon. Calling out like that was – careless.”

“Jesus, what do you want from me?  First I’m too cautious, now I’m careless?  If I’d been any less careless, you might not be standing here.”

“And now it’s you who’s not standing.” 

“My leg is my problem.” 

“It’s _our_ problem.  That’s the problem.”  
* * * * 

Gunter leaned the crutches against the wall outside the door.  _A broken leg was the least of their problems._  
* * * *

In the morning, Solo wheeled his way to the kitchen, drawn by aromas of breakfast that made his mouth water in anticipation.  He turned the corner into the kitchen, ready to greet Renna with a smile and compliments over the food, but the kitchen was empty.  Coffee, rolls, bacon and scrambled eggs waited on the big table in the center of the kitchen.  As he approached the table, he heard Renna’s voice coming from the pantry.  He was about to call her name when Gunter’s voice stopped him.  He was in there with her.

“Come to Midnight Mass with us tonight.  Father Avery has such a beautiful voice,” Renna was saying.

“I have no use for that meddler.”

“Don’t be that way.”

“He should stick to singing.”

“He helps me.”

“Every Saturday you sit with him and listen to that holy horseshit and come back here and put me off for another week.  What kind of help is that?”

“I don't know. He’s just helping me.”

“He knows nothing.”

“He says all you have to do is come to confession.”

“The registry office is enough.”

Her voice, quiet, firm:  “I want to be married by the priest.”

A sharp bang, a fist, hitting a shelf.  Gunter stomped from the pantry, snatched his coat from the hook on the wall.  He threw the back door open and slammed it shut behind him. 

Solo had backed to the doorway between the kitchen and the great front room and was relieved that Gunter did not see him sitting there.  But Renna did.  She had balled her apron in her hands and wiped with it at her reddened face and eyes as she came from the pantry.  She saw the look on Solo’s face and laughed - a single, bitter chuckle. Shaking her head, she went to the little table and sat, looking out the window, a hand pressed against her mouth. 

Solo maneuvered the wheelchair to her side.  _“’Priests in black gowns, were walking their rounds, and binding with briars, my joys and desires.’”_

Renna slowly turned to him.  “You sound like Gunter.”

“It’s from a poem by William Blake.  The two of you just now reminded me of it.”  

 “Well, don’t tell it to Gunter.  He’s stubborn enough without you giving him that for fodder.”   
* * * *

In the afternoon, while Solo went to rest and read in bed, Kuryakin helped Gunter haul the Christmas tree into the great front room.  They would all help decorate the tree after supper.  Gunter had already hauled the boxes of decorations up from the cellar.    

When they came through the front doors with the tree, Kuryakin came in first, guiding the tree top.  Gunter brought up the rear, holding the tree by the trunk, pushing its bulky bottom branches through the doorway.  Kuryakin saw that Pauly’s boy had opened one of the boxes and had pulled from its depths a thick bundle of Christmas tree lights, the long strands looped around a flat piece of wood in orderly coils.  He had upended the board and was determinedly shaking it.  The lights dropped to the floor in a jumbled nest.

“No!”  Gunter’s cry shot across the room.  Pauly’s boy jumped at his uncle’s shout and hastily tried to gather up the pile of lights, but only succeeded in creating a snarl of wires stretching from the floor to his hands. 

Gunter dropped his end of the tree. 

Pauly’s boy hurriedly shook the lights, pulling at them, lifting the mess higher.  Bulbs caught at cords, and the more he pulled, the more the strands became tangled. 

“Stop!” 

Pauly’s boy dropped the lights.  A bulb broke loose and rolled away.  

Gunter picked up the wooden storage frame and advanced upon Pauly’s boy. Rotating the frame, he said, “You’re supposed to unwind them, you careless –“ 

A mixture of embarrassment and injury worked across Pauly’s boy’s face, but only for an instant, before his expression turned to stone.  He stalked past Gunter and Kuryakin, and out the open front doors of the inn.

Gunter spun around and stalked into the kitchen.  A moment later, the kitchen door slammed.

Renna came downstairs.  “What’s going on down here?”  She looked at the tree on the floor.  “Where’s Gunter?”  She saw the lights strewn across the floor.  “Where’s Paul?”

Kuryakin picked up the broken bulb and laid it on the table by the fireplace.  “I think they needed some fresh air.” 

Renna went to the kitchen.  Kuryakin followed her.  She took her coat and purse, went outside, got into her car and drove away. 

Kuryakin returned to the front room.  He pulled the front doors closed.  Picking up the lights, he piled them on the table by the fireplace.  He examined the tree stand, and unscrewed the brackets to accommodate the Christmas tree trunk.  After hoisting the tree into the stand, he knelt to tighten the first bracket.  The tree leaned to the side and fell.  Kuryakin got to his feet.  He carried the tree stand to the wall, then lifted the tree and dropped it back into the stand, allowing the tree to lean against the wall.  He tightened each bracket a few turns in succession, then repeated the process until the brackets had all bitten into the tree trunk.  He pulled the stand away from the wall. 

The front doors of the inn opened.  “It’s crooked,” said Gunter, his arms loaded with firewood.

They had an inch of 1956 chokecherry to celebrate the straightening of the tree.  Gunter hauled a chair to the tree and put the star on top.  They had another inch of wine to celebrate the placing of the star.

They had another inch, to celebrate the putting away of the chair.  Gunter lit the fire, and they celebrated that, as well.  Gunter began to hum a bit of ‘O, Tannenbaum’.  After that, they went to the kitchen in search of Renna’s Christmas cookies. 

Kuryakin bit into a molasses crinkle.  “Gunter, perhaps you should find Pauly’s boy,” said Kuryakin.  “And talk things over.  He was trying to help. I don’t think he meant to be careless.”  

Gunter took a bite of his cookie.  “I know.” He put the cookie down.  “ _Perhaps,”_ he said, “You should take your own advice.”  He walked out the kitchen door, slamming it behind him.

Kuryakin decided to take a nap by the fire.  The door slamming was giving him a headache. 

When he woke, it was dark.  He checked his watch.  Seven o’clock.  Supper time had come and gone.  There was no sign of Renna or Gunter. He went to the kitchen to make some sandwiches. Taking up his plate, he went back out to the great room.  He stopped in the doorway.

Pauly’s boy had returned. He sat at the table in front of the fireplace in the amber glow of the fire, the tangled Christmas lights under his motionless hands. A log cracked, embers popping, and he started at the noise.  He picked listlessly at a string of bulbs, then put them down and raked his fingers through his hair, drawing it off his face, combing it back across the top of his head.  He laid his head in his hands.  

 _Careless._ He’d used that word too casually.  _I have to straighten things out with Napoleon._   Kuryakin crossed the room to the fireplace and put the plate on the table.  Pauly’s boy looked up.

“Did Gunter find you?” Kuryakin asked.

“No.”

“He’s looking for you. Have a sandwich.  Maybe he'll be back soon.”

He went to the room.  It was dark.  By the light cast from the hall, he saw that Solo was still in bed, a book propped opened on his chest.  A bottle of pain pills stood on bedside table.  Kuryakin went to his own bedside table, picked up a couple of books from the stack, and took them to the door to check the titles.

Behind him, Solo said, “I’m awake,” and sat up, turned on his bed lamp.

“How are you feeling?”

“Groggy.  And hungry.”

“I’ll bring you a sandwich.  And some milk.”   

“I talked to Mr. Waverly this afternoon. To get his take on things.”

“What did he say?”

“He said if I hadn’t called to you, he’d be more irate than he is now.  I’m not allowed to let you fall off a cliff without warning you.  So I’m officially vindicated.”

Kuryakin put the books down and pulled a chair up next to Solo.  “I’ll concede the cliff.  But you can’t be yelling every time I’m in danger.”

“Cliffs it is.  What about roofs?”

“Only if it doesn’t give away our position.” 

“What about falling objects?” 

“I think I’ll get those sandwiches.”  
* * * *

The table by the fire was vacant. Pauly’s boy was gone.  
* * * *

Half past midnight.  The place was quiet.  Solo patiently tugged at the tangled Christmas lights. He had them nearly straightened out.  “Voila.  Here’s the last of them.”

Kuryakin dropped into a chair next to Solo.  “My arms are getting tired.”

“Too bad.  Hurry up.  We have to be done before they get back.” Renna had called.  She and Paul were going to Midnight Mass.  And miracle of miracles, she’d said, Gunter was coming, too.  

“By the look on your face, I can see you’re about to spout a sugar plummed platitude about Christmas spirit.  If you do, I will kick your bad leg.” 

“Actually, I was thinking about the power of love.” 

Kuryakin took the strings of lights to the tree.  He connected them together and plugged them into the electric outlet next to the tree.  They burst into a colorful, radiant glow.

“They work.  Here’s to the power of electricity.” 

Solo did not respond.  Kuryakin turned around.  His partner had disappeared. 

From the direction of the kitchen came the squeak of wheels. Solo was on his way back, with Pauly’s chokecherry wine wedged into the side of the wheelchair.  In his lap lay two glasses.  Kuryakin met him at the little table by the fire.  Solo put the bottle on the table.  One of the glasses rolled from his lap and fell. 

“Be careful!” Kuryakin blurted, and caught the glass before it hit the floor.   

Solo laughed.  “I rest my case.”

“Shut up and pour.” 

Solo poured.  Kuryakin raised his glass.  Solo raised his. 

“Here's to friendship.”

“To friendship.”

They clinked glasses and drank. 

The fire crackled.  Outside, the wind howled across the tops of the yews.  Inside, a gust of air rattled the damper, sending a shower of sparks flying, fanning the flames.  But the wave of warmth suddenly flooding the room, Kuryakin decided, had nothing to do with the fire and everything to do with their toast. 

Solo coughed.  “ _What is this stuff?”_

"Merry Christmas, Napoleon."

 

The End

 


End file.
